


Stardust

by Ericine



Series: Lush [11]
Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Alien Culture, Alien Rituals, Bathing/Washing, Betazoid Culture and Customs, Children, Empathy, F/F, Family, Femslash, Hair, Hair Washing, Klingon Culture and Customs, Long Hair, Mixed Race, Motherhood, Multi, Parenthood, Sensuality, it takes a village, soh-chim
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-01
Updated: 2017-12-01
Packaged: 2019-02-09 04:08:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12879876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ericine/pseuds/Ericine
Summary: Everyone knows Deanna's good with children, but no one's ever asked her how she feels about them. Beverly learns an ancient Betazoid ritual to help her talk about it. (Or, Beverly washes Deanna's hair.)





	Stardust

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Leyenn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leyenn/gifts), [cosmic_llin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmic_llin/gifts).



> I've been sitting on this piece for over a month now, and it's so exciting to let it see the light of day! Thanks so much to my co-artist for kicking my butt when I needed to write faster, and thanks so much to those who helped organize this year's Trek Femslash Big Bang!
> 
> Okay, notes! I took some liberties with Betazoid culture (more on this at the end), and I have this in the Lushverse because it very well could take place within that universe. It also stands perfectly on its own, so YMMV with how much you think it complies with the rest of the 'verse.
> 
> Dedications are to Leyenn who discusses beauty products with me in addition to Trek and to cosmic_llin for sparking my creativity through a post I saw a long time ago about how she wanted to read about Beverly and Deanna brushing each other's hair. So...this is mostly just Beverly washing Deanna's hair, but she still inspired that idea, so thanks! :) She's also encouraged me to explore motherhood feels with these two in the face of Deanna's relationship with Alexander.
> 
> Timeline-wise, this is probably after "Parallels."

Don’t get her wrong - the counselor is a strong contender in the running for the best lover Beverly Crusher’s ever had, but Beverly’s mind’s honestly has never gone there first. Even before they had this thing - this beautiful, treasured friendship of theirs that grew into so much more - Beverly always considered Deanna in a relationship would be more of the way she is right now.

_ Right now _ is somewhere luxurious, slow, and ornate. They are, as they end up more often than not, in the counselor’s quarters, specifically near the tub that Deanna doesn’t use nearly as often as she’d like. Several candles, lit on a whim, are the only light in the room. The tub is filled with water that swirls purple and blue and smells like something richly sweet and floral. Bits of plants and what look like small pearls float in the water, and Beverly knows that the pearls are soft to the touch and even more silky.

The edge of the tub, normally bare, has various scented bars and cloudy-shimmery bottles resting on it - violet, fuchsia, deep magenta, azure, turquoise, and something that swirls and changes just like sunsets over San Francisco. Some have been used already to create the atmosphere in the tub, and others are for later. The whole thing feels like vaguely hazy and dreamlike, like the first few moments before slipping into sleep.

They sit on the floor together. Deanna has repurposed one of her signature long, paper-thin chemises, retying and converting the high pale pink neckline to straps that tie loosely around the tops of her breasts. She lounges against the side of the tub, legs curled to one side, arms stretched out across the edge, hair falling freely behind her into the basin, where the ends brush the water’s lush-looking surface. “There’s no need to be anxious,” she offers kindly.

Beverly laughs a little at that, reaches out and runs a hand along the ends of Deanna’s curls. “You’re right,” she admits. “There’s just so much happening that I don’t even know where to start.”

“Sure you do. Where do you think you start?”

Beverly’s eyes flick over the smaller woman’s hair again, from the ends spread helter-skelter around her to the glittering pink headband holding it back. She grins, a little sheepish. “I take off the headband.” Deanna nods a little in agreement, and Beverly slides it off and places it on the ground beside them. “Now, I wash?”

Deanna hums a little, a happy noise. “We’ve got nowhere in particular to be quickly. Let it soak a while, pick up the moisture in the water.”

That makes sense. Betazed is a tropical planet. Betazoids possibly wouldn’t take kindly to a standard ship-regulated atmosphere. Beverly reaches out, gently tipping Deanna’s head back a little more into the water. Her black roots disappear beneath the surface shimmering with vitamins, minerals, and moisturizers from Deanna’s home planet; and Beverly can’t help but smooth Deanna’s forehead and kiss her on the cheek. “Do you treat it like this every night?”

Deanna smiles, slow and warm, at the kiss. “Gods, no. I couldn’t sustain it, especially if we were planetside for an extended stay. Hm, I guess I do it every two weeks, give or take. If we’re caught up in something for a while and I can’t do it, then I’ll do it extra to make up for it when I’m free again.” Beverly supposes that begins tonight. They’ve just left a planet and have a few days’ journey between them and their next destination, where they'll rendezvous with Will and Data, who are off training cadets.  


“And on Betazed?” Beverly asks gently. She’s read up on the planet’s customs, of course. She read them again when she found out she was going to be serving with a half-Betazoid who grew up on the planet and again when she began sharing that woman’s bed three nights out of the week ( _ dating _ is too strange a term for what they have become - a strong friendship that’s been built up over years until one day, a tilt-shift put them on this trajectory; she supposes she’s possibly been  _ dating _ Deanna Troi since they met - they just hadn’t known it). But there’s always nuance there that can’t be explained, particularly in a group of people that has a whole other dimension of communication. Deanna grew up with only a variation of that, of course, but she’s still better at explaining it than anyone Beverly’s ever met.

Deanna grins. “It’s ritual, of course, meaning that you can take it or leave it as much as you want.”

“But not in the Fifth House?”

Deanna closes her eyes and leans her head from side to side, the water swishing with it. “Yes, we adhered more closely to ritual. You do it when it feels adequate for you. She gestures around her chest. “You’re supposed to feel connected to yourself, as connected as you feel to the minds around you. But if you take into account that you’re aware of what everyone’s thinking all the time, it basically means that you do it when they all start thinking that you should.” Beverly grimaces. “Of course, I was a little less aware of this than everyone else, so my mother just told me to put myself on a schedule. As long as I did it regularly enough to look presentable at the odd event here and there, she didn’t push too hard.”

Now  _ there’s _ a thought: Lwaxana as one of the more lenient and liberal Betazoid mothers among the planet’s nobility. She’ll have to ask about that more later.

Beverly scoots closer to the side of the bathtub, curling her legs so that she’s mirroring Deanna and their knees touch. One of the long sleeves of her sage green dress is soaked to nearly her shoulder from where she’s dipped her arm into the water, spreading Deanna’s curls beneath the water’s surface. She hadn’t known to change, and the air in the bathroom’s so warm that she doesn’t fully mind the difference.

They were on a mountainous planet mere hours ago, collecting botanical samples in a valley so deep that the inhabitants lived half their lives in the water that was such an integral part of their landscape. Beverly had watched them walk up the roads - half wet, half dry - wearing long flowing garments over jumpsuits that helped them exist in both environments. No one had batted an eye, even when the garment would pool or stick of one side of a person.

It was a safe enough planet, and Alexander had wanted to run around and play in the water. Worf was leading an expedition, so as it often was the case these days, duties with Alexander fell to Deanna, who was acting as (she assumes) a  _ soh-chim _ would in these circumstances.

It’s a lot on her plate though, even without factoring in the fact that he and his father are both her patients, and Beverly had stepped in quietly when she saw the younger woman struggling with braiding back his hair (it was so long now) in the style he’d wanted.

Deanna’s as good at hiding her own emotions as she is at reading others’. The hint of frustration Beverly had seen was therefore intentional. She’d spent the day wondering about how best to approach this, then realized she’d been overthinking the whole thing. When Deanna had come back from tucking Alexander into bed and collapsed into her own, rigid with exhaustion, Beverly had slowly, with as much of a scalp massage she could work in, taken Deanna’s hair out of the curly ponytail she’s been favoring these days and asked her to show her how to care for hers.

Deanna’s rising out of the shimmer a little, purple droplets cascading down her curls into the water below; she’s soaked enough. Now it’s time for the hair wash.

“I’m not required to do this, honestly,” Deanna admits, and Beverly picks something out of her hair that’s caught in the water - it looks like a speckled flower petal. “Even Mother stopped in favor of wigs a few years ago.”

“Fitting for someone who wants to change her appearance so often,” replies Beverly, with a little wonder at the way that all of this smells and feels as she works the vaguely rose-scented liquid into Deanna’s roots. It’s thick and a little oily. She’ll lather it up later with a soapy hard cake that smells sharply sweet.

She knows this part better, the way that Deanna washes when they’re planetside on worlds that don’t have sonic shower-like facilities. She remembers a river, the hem of a dress tangled in undergrowth, both of them laughing apologetically as Deanna accepted her offer for help. Things were different between them then, a different variation on a theme of sunlight breaking through trees into cool air below.

As a response to that thought, probably, Deanna leans back into Beverly's hands, smiling. "Perhaps. It's something I liked, though, so I kept this part for myself." They meet eyes then through the window created by Beverly's arms on either side of that beautiful hair, and smile.

She likes the idea of Deanna, who has to quietly share so much with the world, having things of her own, collecting them and keeping them somewhere treasured. Together, they lift her head out of the water, and Beverly tries to keep her mind on pleasant things: mountain valleys, water that sparkles as far as the eye can see, a village of people who are as comfortable in the waves as they are walking on green river shores.

“You don’t have to do that,” Deanna tells her, as she wrings the water back into the tub. She has to have been doing this for years, but maybe because Beverly’s sporting wet sleeves from wrist to elbow, Deanna’s a little careless with the water as well. It splashes over the bare skin on her arms, runs down her neck a little over her collarbones, onto the sheer nightgown.

“I’m just here,” Beverly says, shrugging, with the smallest of smirks.

Deanna lets go, and her wet curls rest on her upper arm. Head still tilted sideways, she looks up at Beverly like some kind of flowy classic Earth painting. “You’re enriching the ritual with positive thoughts of your own. There’s no need.”

Except that’s every Betazoid ritual, Beverly’s come to understand. There’s a telepathic element to everything. It’s not just about the physical motions - those usually fall secondary to the interaction between the minds of the people involved. The physical actions are memorized and flow almost on autopilot, like chanting or another type of meditation. When one’s body is tasked with ritual, the mind can more easily concentrate on the thoughts that really matter.

Beverly’s not fully sure how that worked for Deanna, who would have been able to discern telepathic thoughts from those around her but also would have been especially sensitive to the intent behind them, but she’s figured out enough now - from conversations with Deanna where she didn’t want to pry but let her curiosity get the best of her, from the idle conversation off duty with Will when they happened to be the last two left at a poker game, even from an off-conversation with Lwaxana or two (Did the woman know about them? She shouldn’t, not from the subspace communication they’ve had, and she thinks Deanna would have told her if she told her mother about them - for fair warning, if anything. But she’s not sure how much she can put past Lwaxana. Not a lot.) that this was at least along the right track. “I’m not allowed to think about you while I’m washing  _ your _ hair?” chuckles Beverly. She takes the sunset-colored spice bar from the side of the tub, dips it into the opalescent water, and works it into a lather between her hands. “We’re in a candlelit, heavily perfumed room, and I’m not thinking about the way you make me feel?”

Given that they’re performing a variation of a Betazoid ritual, there’s not really a lot of speaking or noise that’s supposed to be involved. But when Beverly buries both hands in Deanna’s wet hair and lowers her head into the water, Deanna leans and arches into her touch, resting her shoulder blades on the edge of the tub instead of her neck. The look on her face is as good as a moan. “Oh, Beverly,” she sighs, eyes closed, and arches again - ostensibly to adjust where her body’s sitting on the tub’s edge. Their clothes are damp, and Beverly’s almost kneeling over Deanna to get a good hair-washing angle.

She clamps down on the part of her thoughts that is meandering over to the way Deanna’s warmer-than-human skin feels against her tongue - the sensitivity of the curve of her neck and collarbones - and tries to bring herself back to where she was before. Comfort. The liminal space between water and land. Families holding hands - parents and children walking under the sun.

She thinks it works. Either way, Deanna’s eyes open - not in surprise, but in - well, she can’t place it, but the point isn’t to think about those kinds of things. It’s to project the positivity onto Deanna, and she wants to do this right.

Beverly’s through the roots now, working her way to the ends of Deanna’s curls.

“How’s Wesley?” Deanna half-sighs, as Beverly, on a flash of inspiration, delegates the task of spreading the spiced shampoo through the rest of Deanna’s hair to one hand, leaving one free to massage the nape of her neck.

She should stay on topic with her thoughts, but she doesn’t need too much of a correction when it comes to Wesley. She’s proud of her son, even as she misses him. “Being in the Academy and serving on a ship full of mentors who don’t have other students to attend to is different, but I think that’s a learning experience in and of itself,” she replies. “You know how it is. Though I guess I never had to think about what my parents thought about me while I was there. You think, because you’re in the same line of work, that you want to help, to do some things for them so they don’t have to do it themselves. But there are lines to this kind of thing, aren’t there?”

She finishes working the lather into the ends of the hair and runs her fingers through all of it slowly, evening out the soap. “I wouldn’t know. I was always a good student, I guess - maybe too good a student because I was always trying to be the best. Mother wasn’t very keen on me going to the Academy, but she came around slowly. My father loved it, so why shouldn’t I? But then that’s also how she lost him, and I also had Fifth House duties - or will, one day.”

Beverly wants to ask how that’s going to work for her, but Lwaxana’s still pretty young for a Betazoid, and the point is to help Deanna relax. Besides, there’s a different issue at play here. “And how is Alexander?”

Deanna completely submerges her hair then, which is fine. Beverly was merely indulging herself in the shampoo at this point. The curls fan out in the water like some kind of ethereal deep sea mermaid, something from mythos. And then she’s rising from the water again, and Beverly’s catching the curls between her fingers and twisting them, wringing them out.

There’s a faint shimmer on the surface of Deanna’s hair. It’s so beautiful. Beverly resists the urge to stare at it and takes the last bar - the azure bar, the same shade as her uniform but translucent in her hand. This is the conditioner.

She doesn’t have to, but she follows an instinct and brings herself to her feet, only to sit on the edge of the tub and prop Deanna’s head up across her lap. Silky, shimmery black locks fan across her lap, and, because fashion isn’t important at bedtime, she’s not wearing her dress’ matching green tights, but the long hem of her skirt skims the water, even as she pushes it up over her knees to sit. If she had been in anyone else’s quarters, the wet fabric would be giving her chills now, but Deanna keeps her room feeling like sun-warmed shallow water.

Deanna hums, satisfied and happy, and she rolls her head a little along the tops of Beverly’s thighs, in a way that makes Beverly think suddenly of Spot. She runs her hands over Deanna’s curls again, making sure they’re spread out for the treatment. She rubs the bar into them - something sweet, rich, and certainly not a scent with which she’s familiar.

Deanna swallows. “I feel completely out of my depth with Alexander. Is that surprising?” Deanna takes a deep breath, so Beverly remains silent, concentrating on the shimmer dripping down her thighs and the closeness that all of this - the fragrance, the atmosphere, the physical touch and warmth between them. “I’ve had child patients for years, and I know that I’m often first on people’s minds when it comes to dealing with children - and we get along fine. But when it comes to taking care of one like this, like a family member--”

“Like yours, a little?” Beverly offers, making sure to get the bar right down in Deanna’s roots.

"I think of Ian a lot more lately," Deanna admits. It's the second time ever she's brought him up to Beverly. "But this isn't quite the same. Alexander’s not my son,” says Deanna. Beverly makes a small noise, just a little one that they both understand well, prompting her. “Lately, though, I’ve been feeling like he is.”

The hair’s getting a little drier than Beverly would like, even in an atmosphere this humid, so she palms a handful of water across the curls and continues to seal in the conditioner. The damp fabric of her dress sticks to her thighs. “Organically, or like it’s being pushed on you?” she asks carefully, making sure to concentrate more on the hair than on her words.

Deanna closes her eyes and smiles tiredly, reading up to wrap a hand around one of Beverly’s wrists. “You can just ask me how it makes me feel. I won’t hold it against you - too much.” They laugh softly. “Is it silly not to want to say anything? It doesn’t make sense, but I still feel like Worf is somewhat of a child himself. It’s not like he’s not trying. It’s not like any of them weren’t trying - his parents, K’ehleyr.” She stops there, and Beverly swallows. Their situations are vastly different, but K’ehleyr still hits way too close to home for her, even now. “And Alexander  _ likes _ me. And I care for him so much. I just don’t always know what to do - I think they think I do.” She doesn’t have to say who the “they” is.

Beverly has to get to the hair that’s pressed up against her thigh, so she gently turns Deanna’s head sideways, toward the candles across the room, and continues her work. “You usually don’t have problems setting personal boundaries, so what’s changed this time?”

Deanna rubs her cheek into Beverly’s thigh, just a little. “Maybe it’s because I’m so close to Worf. Or because I’m thinking of how we all helped with Wesley, and I want to do my part here too.”

“It’s true. I didn’t name you Wesley’s coparent,” says Beverly. She makes sure to meet Deanna’s eye on that. “For several reasons. Not one of them was that I thought you’d be unable, of course. But we didn’t know each other very well. You had no personal obligation to me but a professional one to everyone on this ship, and you’re quite young for motherhood anyway.”  _ Lwaxana  _ after all had barely hit prime parenting age herself. “Also, Wesley and I had been getting along fine on our own.”

She can feel Deanna’s smile against her thigh. “Thank you for that, by the way.”

“For what?”

“For remembering. I think humans don’t always. It’s hard I suppose, because we look so much like you, and then my mother also seems quite human in her parenting choices.” Beverly briefly touches her cheek when she says that.

“You know that when Jack first died, though, I went home.” Deanna turns toward her then, and Beverly begins on the other side of her hair.

“Really?”

“I let my nana help me. It’s a lot to do on your own. Anyone who says otherwise is lying, and I’d be lying if I said that the years I spent doing it on my own weren’t hard, and that I didn’t feel like curling up at the end of the day and crying. Except I was too exhausted to.” Deanna’s eyes widen a little - surprise, empathy (of course), and a little bit of relief? Or maybe Beverly’s imagining it.

“But _ that’s _ why I keep doing it. I know how hard it must be for Worf, and it’s harder when you’re trying to raise a child in--” She pauses.

“In a culture that’s not his own?” Another brief touch to Deanna’s cheek. “Is that part of it too? It must be hard, being in the minority on a human-dominated ship.”

Deanna shrugs against Beverly’s legs. “Perhaps. The difference is that people often forget that I’m not human. They won’t do that with Alexander.”

It’s a good point. And Beverly needs to formulate what she’s about to say carefully, but she has time. She settles her thoughts on one of the better early days, when Wesley had fallen asleep and stayed asleep through the night. She’d spent the first few hours speaking to Nana about a paper idea that had barely started formulating in her head - the medicinal properties shared by a few Andorian and Vulcan herbs. It had been gloriously mundane - Wesley in her arms, she and Nana in the rocking chairs in her sitting room. Deanna relaxes just a little bit against her thigh. “Deanna, there’s not a child on the  _ Enterprise _ that’s been raised by just one parent - or just two. And I’m speaking from experience. If you and Worf are taxed, then some of the rest of us can step up. And you can always come to me.”

Deanna closes her eyes. “I know people like to go to you for parenting advice. I didn’t want to be another one. I'm barely a parent.”

Deanna’s curls are shimmery and saturated between her hands. She smoothes through the curls a couple of times, and they’re already beginning to separate into the defined ringlets she knows Deanna for so well. They’ll rinse it in the water one more time then let it air dry in the humidified air in Deanna’s quarters. If they get called in for duty - or if it’s not completely dry by when it’s alpha shift, they’ll whip it into shape in the sonic shower.

But they don’t need to rinse it just yet. Beverly rests one hand on Deanna’s shoulder and the other on her forehead, smoothing back the glimmer that’s dusted there.

“I think Wesley would say different,” Beverly tells her, dripping some of the water over the curls. (She knows Ian would say different too, but it's not her place to say.) “You don’t have to be doing everything for someone to be a parental figure. But it’s also alright to say that someone’s asking too much of you and to ask for help, especially if you’re also that child and his father’s therapist.”

“Like today with his hair?” suggests Deanna.

Beverly smiles. “Yes, and if you want, you can practice on mine. It’s not nearly as straight, I’m afraid, but you can practice smoothing everything down.”

Deanna smiles then, and Beverly hadn’t thought it was possible that this room could sparkle any more than it already is, but there Deanna is, beaming and radiant under her hands, and Beverly is suddenly more aware than usual that they’re both made of stardust and that so many complicated churnings of the cosmos had interacted to bring them together right now - Beverly, limbs submerged in nebula-colored water; Deanna in her lap; and the room twinkling around them. The beauty of it strikes her as profound.

She’s not the only one.

“Beverly,” whispers Deanna, and she realizes that Deanna’s eyes are shining in the candlelight.

Beverly draws a thumb down from Deanna’s forehead to her cheek down her jaw to her lips. Deanna closes her eye, parts her lips a little under Beverly’s thumb. And then she’s moving, rising up on her knees, kissing Beverly with both hands on either side of the doctor’s face, rising again, settling on the rim of the tub, dress pooling in the water and she joins Beverly at the edge of the tub, shins brushing together. Deanna’s hair is long and damp and soaking through the rest of their dry clothing, and Beverly’s hands settle on either side of Deanna’s waist, pulling her closer. “I love you. I didn’t want your day to end on a bad note,” Beverly says against her mouth.

She feels Deanna smile against her mouth rather than see it. “It didn’t,  _ ithái _ ,” she reassures her, and kisses her again. “I love you too.”

**Author's Note:**

> This may be very Human of me (lol), but I read Betazoid Phase as peak fertility, which means that Lwaxana later in the show would be at peak childbearing age. We don't see a ton of Betazoids in the TV series, but this headcanon makes pretty sound biological sense (also, it's gloriously Not Human, which is fun to explore). Also, she ends up giving birth during the run of DS9!
> 
> It would also explain away that weird, cringe-worthy "Who's the father?" line that Will throws out there in The Child. I can see Lwaxana having kids early as kind of a compromise for Deanna's father, and I figure Betazoids are definitely capable of having kids at Deanna's age, but wouldn't it be nice if instead of that line being possessive, it was more out of concern for Deanna having a baby way earlier than most on her home planet do?
> 
> Anyway, I've gotten really chatty. Thanks for reading. :)


End file.
